Page 15 of Stupid Dirty

Swallow. Breathe. Keep looking at Cade.

“I didn’t mean to end up there. But I did. And you saved me. So…thank you.”

One more tear squeezes out, but I ignore it.

Cade smiles again, something softer this time, but no less brilliant. Reaching for me just like before, he pulls me in for another hug and pats me on the back in some weird, intimate version of a bro-hug. For once, I allow myself to sink into the touch. To let him comfort me and trust that he actually wants to.

“I’ve got you now, buddy. You’re stuck with me,” he murmurs in my ear.

Something in my chest cracks open so my guts and my heart and everything else can spill out onto the floor.

“Okay.”

Chapter Seven

“Why are we doing this?”

Silas looks at me with the most plaintive expression he can pull, and I almost cave. Honestly, I don’t know how someone who is built like an action figure can look so tough and so pathetic at the same time, but Silas manages it. Seriously. He’s better at the puppy-dog eyes thing than my little sisters, and that’s saying something.

He’s looking at me with those whiskey-brown eyes all sparkling and shit, silently begging me not to make him socialize. But I won’t give in. Because as much as I’ve loved becoming his first and only real friend over the past couple of weeks, everyone needs more than one person in their corner.

I still don’t know that much about him. In the past few weeks, I’ve made the effort to draw him out of his shell as much as possible. Mostly revolving around going enduro riding in the woods near my place, because dirt bikes are the one thing we have in common. Which isn’t a talk-heavy activity, but I’vemanaged to drag a few bits and pieces out of him and figure out a couple of key things.

He looks serious all the time, except when the camera’s on him, when he has a plastic, pre-packaged smile. It’s the reason I thought he was stuck up in school, and most people who meet him now assume he’s an asshole. But it’s really because he has the whole awkward, social anxiety thing going on. I still haven’t totally figured it out. It’s like he has no idea how he’s supposed to act around other people, or maybe he just hates having to try, so he shuts down instead. This serious mask snaps into place, and he goes dead behind the eyes.

Hence, robot Silas.

Underneath all that awkwardness, he’s like, the sweetest guy I’ve ever met. All soft-spoken and always trying to be considerate of other people, even if it comes out in a garbled heap of mumbled words. Maybe if he’d been allowed to do anything other than train and ride for his entire life, he’d have developed the social skills to cope with whatever mental health stuff is going on, but that’s clearly not the way his dad saw it.

That’s the other thing. I am never, ever, going to let myself be alone in a room with his dad. Because I do a lot better keeping my temper in check these days, but after just a glimpse into the isolation and manipulation that he’s put Silas through for the last two decades… Yeah, even my willpower will snap.

I learned a long time ago that you can’t do anything about the shitty hand you were dealt. So, I’m focusing on introducing some positive human contact into his life, outside of a moto track.

Which is why I dragged him to a party. Plus, it’s Wish’s party, and she hates it when I bail.

“We are doing this because you are my friend,” I throw my arm around his shoulder as I say this and he only flinches a little before he settles into the contact. He’s getting better at that. “And you need to get out more. Plus, my mom is sober enough tobe left alone with my sisters, which almost never happens, so I’m taking this as a sign from the gods. We’re going.”

Silas doesn’t say anything, he just sighs and starts walking towards the house. We’re slipping into winter now, and as soon as the sun goes down it gets cold as fuck outside. Like right now. The air is crisp, the breeze snapping at me like it’s trying to snatch what little warmth I have left, and dry twigs crack underneath our feet with every step. Silas was sensible, as usual, and is wearing a brown Carhartt jacket over a red flannel. It makes him look like what people with a lumberjack fetish who have never met a real lumberjack think they look like.

I’ve exercised extreme restraint in not making fun of him, I think. Partly because I don’t want to make him any more uncomfortable than he already is, and partly because the son of a bitch pulls it off and looks pretty damn good.

I, obviously, am a dumbass, so I only threw on a ratty black hoodie over my t-shirt and ripped jeans. We just got out of the car and I’m already shivering. On the upside, Wish lives in town in the numbered streets, not buried in the backwoods. Her driveway is driveway-length, instead of the half-mile monstrosity that leads up to my place, so there’s less than twenty feet to cover while I shiver and regret my life choices.

Which is still enough time to make Silas frown. He has this way of looking at me like he’s trying to pull me apart, or something. Maybe figure out all my secrets; not that I have any. I assume it’s part of him needing a little more conscious thought than most people for social interactions, and it doesn’t bother me, so I don’t say anything. In fact, it’s almost kind of nice. I spend a lot of time watching everybody else in my life; it feels good to have someone looking at me once in a while.

“You’re cold.”

To the point, as always. He doesn’t talk much when he’s sober, but what he does say is about as subtle as a starting gun.Something about his inability to bullshit always makes me smile, though. I’ve been lied to enough for one lifetime. I’ll take a little blunt honesty.

“It’s winter, big guy.”

Thank fuck we’re getting closer to the house. I’m worried I’m about to lose a testicle to exposure. And I like my testicles where they are, thank you.

Silas frowns again. My arm is still hanging loosely over his shoulder, but I feel him snake his own arm out and wrap it around my waist, pulling me into his side.

It’s kind of weird. Most guys wouldn’t do that, but I don’t buy into that toxic masculinity, homophobic bullshit. And the more time I spend with Silas, the more I suspect that he’s not always awkward. It’s more that he doesn’t always have an appropriate frame of reference for things that most people consider normal. Like all the basic rules of friendship and platonic physical affection that we learned growing up are just a black hole of question marks in his brain.

He wasn’t raised by wolves, but when it comes to social stuff that’s outside of a racetrack, I’m beginning to suspect he might as well have been.

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